Other consonantal variables

Three other consonantal variables that have attracted extensive sociolinguistic attention are simplification of final consonant clusters (as in last and raised), unstressed final -ing (as in looking and something), and realization of nasal consonants in syllables codas only as vowel nasalization (as in  for don’t). As with other varieties of English, simplification of final consonant clusters is infrequent before vowels, common before consonants, and intermediate before pauses, as well as being more frequent in monomorphemic words (last) than in bimorphemic words (raised). Forms such as  , and  as the plurals of post, wasp, and desk, respectively, which were common in older African American speech, occurred only rarely in older Southern white speech. Forms such as  were more common in white speech but are now quite recessive and are currently most prevalent in Appalachia. Unmarked plurals or plurals such as [p^hous:] are still fairly common in white Southern speech, but they are widespread elsewhere, too.

Unstressed final -ing may occur as  at higher rates in white Southern speech than in other white North American English, but otherwise it shows the same social and stylistic conditioning (i.e.,  is more frequent among lower socio-economic groups, among males, and in less formal styles). Hypercorrection, e.g., mounting and chicking for mountain and chicken, was once common in the South, especially in writing. Realization of nasals in codas as vowel nasality is widespread as a sandhi-form.

Yet another consonantal variation, merger of /w/ and /v/ to , once occurred around the Pamlico Sound and perhaps elsewhere but has now disappeared (Wolfram and Thomas 2002).